Sunday, October 28, 2007

This is a series of 4 ATCs I made to celebrate the upcoming winter season. I love the contrast between the red, black, grey and white and the black and white winter photos. I sprinkled them here and there with ultra-fine crystal glitter but its hard to see in the photos! They are available on Ebay: Snow Baby Card, Boys Playing in the Snow, Boy and Collie, Snowy Village.

Her name is Ruby and this little Christmas fairy is perched on a super thick cream colored snowflake with her tiny leg dangling over the edge with her blue Mary Janes on. She is a copy of a vintage photo that has been backed by chipboard and then book text, hand colored and embellished with white paint trim and a polka-dot hat. Her wings are semi-transparent leaves with silver glitter. The snowflake is attached to a light blue mini clip. The snowflake is embellished with red & silver sequins and a silver snowflake sequin. She would be adorable clipped to a tree, package or bag! This ornament measures 3.5 inches tall and 2.25 inches wide.I just posted her on Ebay! Starting price is $2.99!!!

Saturday, October 27, 2007

After the horrible craft show I went to this morning I had to come home and create something that wasn't a snowman or burgundy and hunter green! So this is what I came up with! I really like the pairing of the apple green polka dot paper with the red and pink. They are available at the Honey Girl Studio Shop. They are bigger than normal tags measuring 4.5 inches by 2.5 inches. Great for writing a message on the back or recipe.

I just came home from the area fall craft show at our local high school. There were about 70 crafters set up and as I walked around perusing the tables a few random thoughts jumped into my head.....and here they are:

1. Where has all the originality gone? It seems the formula to the crafts at craft shows anymore is this: buy fabric snowmen from the dollar store or local craft store, glue to a wooden painted base beside a small artificial tree with lights and splatter the whole thing with white paint to make snow! There had to be about 15 tables with these kind of items. It's the same tired old stuff!

2. No Christmas ornaments were to be found other than the crudely painted Steelers and Browns ornaments! What happened to ornaments at craft shows???? And I'm not talking about the $45 a piece ornaments, I'm talking about the $5 to $10 ornaments that really showcase a little detail and imagination. You know, the ones you really want hanging on your tree or to give away as a gift.

So my craft show trip was a bust this morning but as I was driving home I was thinking, "thank God for the online network of artist and crafters I have discovered because they have imagination, originality and creativity"! Reading some of their blogs and seeing their work is just like a tall glass of ice cold water to a very thirsty woman! In closing, I'd just like to post a heartfelt "thank you" to all of my talented cyber friends who leave comments on my blog and feel that it's my privilege to visit their blogs as well!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Don't you just love the look on her face?!?!?! This nifty little Christmas ornament is 4 inches by 4 inches and is composed of a coaster, decorative papers, a copy of a vintage photo (hand colored, circa 1952) antiqued around the edges and sprinkled with glitter. There is a tinsel hanger on the back of it to hang on your aluminum tree! She is in the Honey Girl Studio Shopright now!

Greetings from a perfect autumn day in Western Pennsylvania! The leaves are a blaze, the sun is shinning in a cloudless deep blue sky and a breeze is rustling the leaves. It's times like these that inspiration seems to sneak up on me and whollip me up-side the head! Such inspiration happened to me last week when I stumbled upon the most worderfully vintage style decorative papers. They have a 1950s-1960s feel about them. Naturally I knew I'd have to incorporate them into the "Fresh Vintage" Christmas tree ornament line. Here's what I came up with....

This is "Zoots". His passion is selling vintage Christmas ornaments and he has what some might say, is an unnatural love for tinsel. Zoots is compised of 1/4 inch baltic birch wood, painted light ivory with a hand painted face and then embellished with text, decorative papers, rubber stamps and cutouts. Everything is then sprinkled with ultra-fine glitter! (which is difficult to see in the photos!) He is 7 inches tall from the tip of his hat to the end of his body and 4 inches wide at the bottom.

Zoots is available on Ebay right now. So click on the word Ebay and check him out!

Now on to garlic planting........

I use to think I wanted a Christmas tree farm but now I'm thinking a garlic farm would be much easier to take care of and even more profitable!

Late September and October are the times to plant garlic here in Pennsylvania. Today was such a glorious fall day that my husband and I decided to put a bed of garlic in. It will grow all winter (slowly) and then when sprink hits it will really shoot up. July is the time to harvest it.

Here's a quick picture tutorial on how to plant it.....

First prepare the bed by turning over the soil and adding a sprinkling of 10-10-10 fertilizer.

Next split the garlic bulbs into individual cloves (leave the paper covering around each clove). Notice I have on blue rubber gloves so I don't smell like garlic! Oh! That's a scary picture of me!

Then plant each clove, pointy side up about 2 inches deep (that's my Gary doing that). Now sit back and wait until July to harvest it!

Friday, October 19, 2007

Armed with his copper bottomed pan, candy thermometer and beret perched upon his head, he works tirelessly in his cozy little kitchen creating "Bob's Original Candy Canes".....they are the most pepperminty-est in the land!

This little ornament is created from layers of decorative papers on a piece of baltic birch wood. Little "Bob" is a copy of a vintage photo from the turn of the century in which a sprinkled superfine glitter on his lapels and stockings (sort of hard to see in this photo). The candy cane is a chenille stem. I still need to attach the hanger to the back of this ornament.

See there really is a Bob's Candy Cane company! In my opinion (I consider myself a candy cane aficionado) Bob's has the best candy canes! When I start in creating my Christmas ornaments I make sure I have the Christmas tunes on the iPod and a ready supply of Bob's Candy Canes! Really gets me in the Zen-Christmas-mode!

How about this little dude? I've named him "Ansel". Doesn't he just look like an Ansel? This ornament reminds me of the happy hours that my cousin George and I spent flying down the pasture hill on our sleds when we were young. My Dad would always tell us "watch out for the mean bull!!!"......but I digress, that's a whole other story for a whole other time.

This is a copy of a photo from sometime in the late 1950s-early 1960s. Just look at that bulky snowsuit. He looks like a little blue Stay-Puff Marshmallow boy! Remember wearing one of those one piece snowsuit and waddling around like a penguin?!?!? I hand colored the photo, backed it with chipboard, added cardstock shoes and glued him on a little wooden sled which I painted blue with red polkadots and glued decorative paper to the top of the sled. I will tie a red ribbon on the top of the sled to hang it on a tree. The snowflakes are cut out of paper and dusted with ultra-fine glitter. Just another addition to the Fresh Vintage Ornament Collection.

The joy of Ansel flying down the snow covered hill on his Flexible Flyer!

Well, I have to get back to the studio but "smiles" until the next entry!

Saturday, October 13, 2007

My new line of "Fresh Vintage" ornaments is coming along nicely. These ornaments are finely detailed, whimsical and will make you say "I gotta have that one for my tree". All the swinging cool cats will have them dangling from their Douglas Fir! They have a vintage feeling with an updated look, that's how I can best describe them. I've tried to use decorative papers that have a 1950s feel and the vintage photos I've used are split into two groups: 1950s & 60s and 1900 through 1940. The colors are also split into two groups: traditional red & green and red & aqua. These ornaments are truely mixed media as I've used chipboard, papers, tinsel, little embellishements, tin container, paper mache' and let's not forget the magic glitter! November 1st is when the ornaments will be on the Honey Girl Studio Shop self. I will also be posting on Ebay and will have notifications on my blog. Enjoy the sneak peek.........and spread the word......Fresh Vintage Christmas ornaments from Honey Girl Studio make for a very retro Christmas! I would enjoy hearing your feed back. Leave me a message and you will be in a drawing for one of these special little ornaments! Oh yah!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Well folks I'm done with the Halloweenie creations and I'm now focusing my creative energies toward Christmas. Stay tuned as I have developed a new line of ormaments called "Fresh Vintage Ornaments". They have that vintage feel with an updated look. Here is a sneak peak....

Friday, October 5, 2007

You've heard the saying, "cute as a pumpkin"? Well here it is in art form! This copy of a picture of a vintage baby is wearing a hand painted pumpkin cap. The background is composed of very small pieces of black, yellow and orange decorative papers. She is all ready for Halloween with her Halloween inspired charms dangling from the bottom of the watch which includes a wooden bead hand painted as a Jack-o-Lantern. A varigated ribbon is attached to the top of the watch to wear it as a pendant. Now on Ebay!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

She considered the crows her charge, therefore she was responsible for their well-being.....she was the "keeper of the crows". This little vintage girl is dressed in a solemn black dress with an orange collar and watches over her crows as she is perched among the pine cones. A candle with a black thread wick is behind her as well as what looks like material but is really paper that I stitched with random stitches and the word "crow". The crows sport party hats (some people thing they are over used, but I like them.....they add whimsy) and 2 dimensional wings. At the bottom of this piece the following items sprinkle the olive green Spanish moss: 2 buttons, a tiny metal bottle cap, 2 silk leaves, brown and mustard yellow berries and a small metal tag which states "forever" with a ribbon (all things that a crow would collect!) The frame is 9 X 7 and is 1.5 inches deep. It has been painted bittersweet orange and antiqued with medium brown to give it a vintage look.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Hmmmmm, now that's a strange concept (if Mona Lisa became a witch)! But that's exactly what I did turning a stamp of the Mona Lisa into a witch complete with the green face, black glittery hair and a black hat with a vintage winking pumpkin. The head, arms and legs fold into the size of the ATC (3.5 by 2.5 inches). The ATC is spectacular as it has whole lot of collage elements going on! I particularly like the antiqued signs which read, "the fragmentariness of life makes coherence suspect", "obscurity is its own reward" and "spooky". There is also a mini collage of the Eiffel Tower with the word Paris stamped over it, half of a vintage style moon, tiny vintage photo of a baby wearing a witch hat, a bee stamp, a "bonjour" stamp, a mini portrait of Mona Lisa with a hand gun and a skull. Each time you look at it you will find something new!

I painted this chair this weekend. It's so stinkin' heavy for a little chair! It came from an old elementary school. I think the reason there were no hyperactive kids in the 1950s was because of these kind of chairs...........they were so heavy that it wore the kids out pushing them in and out from the desk and they didn't have any energy left to be hyper!